God of Vengeance

by Giles Kristian

  Thengil turned to one of the warriors at his shoulder, a man whose beard was still more brown than white and whose face gave away nothing of what he was thinking. ‘This outlawed son of a dead jarl, a young man barely into his first beard, comes here to insult me in my own hall. And will I do nothing about it?’ He turned back to Sigurd. ‘Do I not hold my honour to be my most valued possession?’ The fat lip hitched and the teeth were back again. ‘Bad enough that I did not receive an invitation to the wedding of Jarl Randver’s son at their Haust Blót feast.’

  This was cast Sigurd’s way like a challenge, like the first spear hurled from one shieldwall to another before a battle, and it crossed Sigurd’s mind to pull the scramasax from its sheath strapped to his right arm beneath his tunic’s sleeve. Why not open Thengil’s belly? Watch his guts slither free and spill onto the floor and see what the corpse-jarl’s old hearth warriors had to say about it. For did not Óðin’s very name mean frenzy? Did the Lord of Death not love chaos?

  ‘There will be no wedding,’ Sigurd said. ‘If the maggot Randver finds himself at the feast table that night it will be with my father and my brothers and his own ancestors.’

  ‘You are an ambitious young man,’ Thengil said, coming closer to get a better look at him. The warriors tightened the knot around them, and yet still it was the first bit of backbone Sigurd had seen in the man. Now they stood eye to eye, close enough that Sigurd could smell on him what he had been doing with the bed slaves before their arrival. It was sweet and musky and Sigurd knew here was a man with an appetite for food, mead and women, but not for war or fame.

  Though as it would turn out, Sigurd was wrong about the last one.

  ‘My father would have liked you, I think,’ the man said. ‘He would have torched Jarl Randver’s hall for the savage joy of watching it burn. As for King Gorm, old Hakon would have enjoyed putting him back in his place. My father would never admit it but he lost some of his edge when he had to swear on Gorm’s sword.’ He looked back to the figure in the bed. ‘I think he regretted not leading his men against Gorm when the man set himself up as a king perched up there at Avaldsnes.’ He shrugged. ‘But I am a different man.’

  ‘I can see that, Thengil,’ Sigurd said. ‘So you will not help me against Jarl Randver and make yourself rich in the doing of it?’ He was suddenly aware of Fjölnir’s claws digging into the flesh of his arm. Thengil turned away, beckoning Hauk to walk with him back into the shadows beyond the head end of his father’s bed. Sigurd could not hear what he was saying to the old warrior but he resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder. He knew well enough how far away the door was at the other end of the hall.

  ‘The truth is, Sigurd Haraldarson,’ Thengil called back to him as Hauk strode past Sigurd without meeting his eye and continued down the hall’s flame-flickered central aisle, ‘your coming here has presented me the opportunity to regain my honour.’

  What honour? Sigurd thought but held his tongue.

  ‘And I thank you for it,’ Thengil went on, reaching out a hand to Jarl Hakon but holding it a finger’s length from the sparse grey hair as though he dared not touch the man. He pulled the hand back and wrapped it around the other one holding the mead horn, then stepped behind one of his men, just as a shout went up from outside.

  Sigurd’s blood froze in his veins.

  ‘Seize him!’ Thengil yelled at his men, his eyes suddenly round, his hands trembling enough to spill mead onto the floor.

  The knot of warriors around Sigurd levelled their spears and surrounded him, and he spat a curse aimed more at himself for not having somehow got Thengil outside or at least closer to the hall’s door. The women on the benches stopped what they were doing now, eyes wide in the hearthlight.

  ‘Do not kill him!’ Thengil shouted. There was more shouting outside but Sigurd’s ears could not untangle it and he hoped Olaf and the others were not risking a fight against eight mailed men, even as old as they were. ‘You can kill that bird though, Bodvar,’ Jarl Hakon’s son said, and the long-bearded spearman frowned as though unsure how to go about it, as Sigurd fumbled at the string wound round his left arm, pulling it out from his tunic’s sleeve so that the string and the feathers tied to it dangled from Fjölnir’s foot. Yet her talons dug into his arm still, the raven eyeing those around her.

  ‘Off with you, bird!’ Sigurd growled, throwing his arm up, and Fjölnir flapped her great black wings and took off into the hearth smoke, croaking angrily. She swept up to the roof like a living shadow and for a sickening moment Sigurd thought she was going to land on a beam and perch there watching with her black-glossed eyes. But she jilted left at the last and, seeing her only escape route, pulled her wings against her body and burst out of the smoke hole into the grey beyond, the feathered string trailing after her.

  ‘You should have speared it, Bodvar,’ one of the other men said. Perhaps he had seen Sigurd’s scheme in letting the bird go. Perhaps not.

  ‘You are a nithing fool, Hakonarson,’ Sigurd said. ‘At the least you should draw your sword, you soft, sow-bellied shit. You troll’s fart.’ He spat on the man’s calf-skin shoes. ‘Not that Óðin’s War-Riders will take you when I cut your throat, Thengil Wolf-Starver. The only thing waiting for you is a knot of worms to feed on your flesh.’

  These insults slid off Thengil like pork grease off a smooth chin. He was grinning like a man who has been looking out to sea, waiting for weeks for the wind to change, and now feels it on the back of his head.

  ‘I think I will make a journey to Hinderå to pay my respects to Jarl Randver,’ he said. ‘For when he sees the wedding gift I have brought he will no doubt sit me beside him at the feast table.’ He fluttered fingers towards the far door. ‘Take him outside,’ he told his men. ‘I would like to meet the fools who have crewed up with this wyrd-doomed boy.’

  A man with a spear blade pointing at Sigurd’s chest jutted his chin towards the door and Sigurd turned, getting a spear butt between his shoulder blades. He walked back down the central aisle, past the looms and the women with busy hands, through the biggest hall he had ever seen, which was these days a stain on the memory of the jarl who once sat in the high seat but now lay in old furs more dead than alive.

  Bodvar opened the scorch-marked door and there were Olaf, Svein and Valgerd in an iron and steel knot, back to back in the middle of a bristling ring of spears.

  ‘That did not go well then, Sigurd,’ Olaf rumbled, watching Thengil’s men over the rim of his shield. ‘I am beginning to think you are not so good at making friends.’

  Two men kept their spears levelled at Sigurd and now Thengil drew his own sword and stood behind him. The other four hirðmen from the hall joined their companions so that twelve men surrounded Olaf, Svein and Valgerd, and all of them wore ringmail. This Jarl Hakon had been as rich as Fáfnir once, Sigurd thought.

  ‘Just give the word,’ Svein told Sigurd, violence coming off him like heat from a forge.

  Sigurd shook his head. ‘Just stand, Svein.’ He knew that the numbers meant nothing to Svein. One nod and his friend would throw himself and his great axe at Thengil’s warriors and carnage would reign. But a spear or two would surely find the big man’s flesh.

  ‘Put down your blades, you growling fools, there is no reason to get yourselves butchered,’ Thengil said, then gestured at Hauk and his other hearthmen. ‘Even old dogs can bite. These men were killing my father’s enemies before I was born.’ He pointed at Svein’s long-hafted axe. ‘On the ground with that, red-beard.’

  ‘Keep hold of it, lad,’ Olaf growled into his beard, but it was clear Svein had no intention of doing otherwise.

  ‘If you don’t give up your weapons I will sheathe this sword in young Sigurd’s back,’ Thengil threatened, and though Sigurd knew the man’s weight alone was enough to drive that blade into him, he knew too that Thengil would do no such thing.

  ‘He needs me alive, Uncle,’ he said. ‘The white-livered nithing means to take me to Hinderå and buy himself a name t
here.’

  ‘Gods but if someone gave me you as a wedding gift I’d put my foot up their arse,’ Olaf said.

  ‘I will ask you one more time,’ Thengil said, the tremor in his voice betraying a rising anger now. Being Jarl Hakon’s son amongst women and old men, it was likely that Thengil was not used to being defied. ‘Put your blades down or my men will spear you where you stand.’ The white-beards were stony-faced and ready to fight. They gripped their spears and shields with long-practised ease, as comfortably as they might hold a cup of ale, and Sigurd knew they would carry out Thengil’s orders without flinching.

  ‘Sigurd is my prize. He is the silver that will see a jarl’s torc at my neck.’

  ‘A jarl of ghosts,’ Olaf said, feet planted, shield up. Ready.

  Valgerd jerked her chin at Sigurd, her eyes knife points in the shadow of her fine helmet. ‘What happened to the bird?’ she asked.

  ‘She flew,’ Sigurd said, glancing towards the woods. A smile touched the warrior woman’s lips. ‘Men of Osøyro!’ Sigurd said. ‘Lower your spears. You are men of honour. You are far above this shit bucket Thengil Hakonarson.’

  Something smashed into the back of his head and he staggered, falling to the dirt. The pommel of Thengil’s sword, he supposed, feeling the blood run warm across his scalp and down the side of his neck, but he did not turn around to face the man and climbed to his feet as though it were nothing.

  ‘Goat-fucker!’ Svein spat at Thengil, straining to be let off his leash, to drown the grey day in red.

  ‘You are proud men,’ Sigurd continued, ‘but you dishonour yourselves doing this man’s bidding. You know full well what your jarl would think of his son. He would have wished he had drowned the nithing at birth.’

  This time a hilt in his lower back that put him on his knees by the curds which Thengil’s thrall had spilled. He tried to speak but could not find the breath.

  ‘Another word and I’ll cut you, Haraldarson,’ Thengil barked, the bridle slipping off his fury now at being insulted before his men. Before his father’s men. Before some of the women too, for they had gathered in the shadow of the hall’s doorway. This was doubtless the most exciting thing that had happened in this place for years.

  Sigurd could feel the bruise blooming in his flesh like a burn. He dragged a halting breath into his lungs and climbed to his feet, a spearman either side of him, their blades poised to plunge into him.

  ‘Hakon’s men, I give you this last chance,’ he said through a grimace of pain. ‘Back away now or die.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Sigurd,’ Olaf said.

  ‘Bring him to me!’ Thengil barked. ‘I will cut that tongue from its root! Jarl Randver will not mind that.’

  ‘Lord!’ one of his hirðmen said, lifting his spear, pointing it west towards the pine-swathed hill.

  Another man spat a curse.

  ‘Shieldwall!’ Hauk roared, and he only needed to give that command once, as his men broke their blade ring around Sigurd’s companions, backing off with shields raised, and spread into a line facing west. Even the two warriors guarding Sigurd hurried to join the others, at which Thengil bolted before Sigurd could take hold of him. Hakon’s son slammed the hall’s door shut and Sigurd heard the bar being dropped into place behind it. Then he looked west himself and the pain in his side and head was consumed by a wave of savage joy.

  His men were coming. They must have seen Fjölnir take to the grey sky, the feather-tied string distinguishing her from any other bird, and now they came like wolves to the kill. Having broken from the tree line, warriors with shields, spears, axes and swords were running across the meadow, as eager for the blood-fray as Thór himself. Floki led, his hair, black as Fjölnir, flying behind him, and with him were Aslak and Hendil, Bjarni and Bjorn and the rest.

  ‘Shieldwall!’ Olaf yelled, throwing Sigurd his sword, which he caught, pulling Troll-Tickler from its scabbard. But Svein could be held back no more. He strode towards Hauk’s shieldwall swinging his long-hafted axe in great diagonal circles before him, and those men braced themselves.

  ‘Brains of an ox,’ Olaf said, but Sigurd was already moving. Valgerd was fast too, at Svein’s left shoulder now.

  ‘Hold, Hakon’s men!’ Hauk roared. ‘Hold!’ As the head of Svein’s axe smashed into a shield, cleaving it down the middle and lopping off the man’s arm. The warrior staggered backwards, waving his half arm, the stump spraying gore over his companions. Then Valgerd plunged into the breach, knocking a spear aside and shrieking as she plunged her own through a man’s neck. Sigurd was on Svein’s right but he did not have a shield or spear and so he had either to keep his distance or get in close. He swung Troll-Tickler at a spear haft, forcing the blade wide, but the man behind it was strong for all his years and he strode forward ramming his shield’s boss into Sigurd’s face, breaking his nose. Sigurd pulled his scramasax from the sheath on his arm and stepped back, looking for the next spear thrust through blurred eyes as blood spewed from his nose onto his lips and beard.

  A blade streaked from the shieldwall and he swiped it away with the scramasax, knowing he had to get in close again, then Olaf slammed his shield into the line and a heartbeat later Floki plunged into the fray, ducking low, getting beneath a shield to hack into a man’s leg with his short axe. Svein was roaring like a maddened beast and Valgerd was shrieking like an eagle and then the others hit like a storm-lashed wave crashing against the rocks. Blood flew and blades sang and men began to die.

  Ubba rammed his spear straight through a grey-beard’s old shield and used his strength to push the shield down and this was all Karsten Ríkr needed. He thrust his sword into the man’s mouth and the blade punched through his skull in a spray of blood and bone. Somehow Floki had cut his way through Hauk’s shieldwall and was behind them now, dealing death with his axe and long knife, and this was enough to break the wall, for men will not hold if they have an enemy at their backs.

  Sigurd saw an old warrior knock Hendil’s spear aside with his shield and sink his own spear into Hendil’s shoulder, but then Agnar Hunter was there with his two scramasaxes, slicing off the man’s leading hand with one and plunging the other into his eye. And even a proud old warrior like that one was not above screaming in fear and pain.

  ‘End it, Sigurd!’ Olaf snarled in his ear. ‘You hear me, lad? It’s not worth the blood.’

  Even in the grip of his blood-lust Sigurd felt the weight of this thing like a stone in his gut. He knew that Olaf was right and he bent to pick up a discarded shield. ‘Back! Shieldwall!’ he yelled, raising the shield to deflect another spear blade. ‘Back!’ For he could not afford to lose men in some meaningless skirmish. Besides which, he admired the warriors he was killing. They deserved better than dying for Thengil White-Liver.

  ‘You heard him, Sigurd’s men. Back!’ Olaf roared in a voice that had carried above more battle dins than he could remember.

  Solveig was bent double and panting. Bjarni was screaming insults at the white-beards and his brother Bjorn was stepping back swiping blood and spit from his torn lip. But Hauk’s men, those who were still able, were striding back from the fray, back from their dead hearth companions and those they had rowed with and sung with and fought with. And there was no panic in these five men, nor any sign that they yielded.

  Valgerd was on her knees opening a man’s throat with her knife, his white beard blooming red in an instant. Svein brought his axe onto a fallen warrior’s head, chopping it in half and burying the axe blade in the earth.

  ‘Enough!’ Sigurd roared. Blood was leaking into his throat and dripping from his beard and from the gash in his head. His lower back screamed in pain from where Thengil had punched him with his sword’s hilt but all he cared about was that there were none of his warriors amongst the dead and dying. Seven of Jarl Hakon’s hearthmen lay dead and two more would join their fellows soon enough by the look of the blood leaking from their wounds.

  Sigurd looked up to see Asgot coming, sword- and spear-armed, his grey
, bone-tied braids hanging either side of his fierce face.

  The rest of his men were panting for breath from the run and the fight but they had formed into a passable shieldwall and even amidst the butchery, the stink of death and shit cloying the air, and his eyes streaming because of his broken nose, he felt prouder than if he had been wearing his father’s great torc of twisted silver.

  ‘Come, Sigurd Haraldarson, we will finish it now,’ Hauk said, beckoning Sigurd with a lift of his shield, showing that the arm behind it was still strong. ‘Our brothers wait for us in the Spear-God’s hall. We will join them.’ A grin appeared in his white beard. ‘Or we will beat you and return to our mead.’

  Sigurd looked the man in the eyes, feeling nothing but respect for him and those shoulder to shoulder with him.

  ‘Jarl Hakon was lucky to have hearthmen such as you, Hauk of Osøyro,’ Sigurd said, then turned his head to spit a wad of congealing blood. He dragged a hand across his mouth and beard, smearing the palm red. ‘But Hakon is gone. There is nothing of the man in that near-corpse in there,’ he said, thumbing back towards the hall. ‘The man you serve now is a coward. He would not even stand with you for this fight but would rather hide amongst women’s skirts. I say again that being oath-tied to such a man is a dishonour and you would do well to be free of such a binding.’

  ‘We will be free soon enough, I would wager,’ Hauk said.

  ‘Aye, we can help you with that,’ Svein the Red said, lifting his gore-slick axe.

  ‘Join us,’ Sigurd said. ‘You have seen what kind of men I have at my side.’

  ‘Not only men, hey!’ Bjarni said, grinning.

  Sigurd nodded. ‘I even had a valkyrie fighting for me.’

  Hauk and his men might have laughed at that, had they not seen Valgerd fight. Had they not watched her slaughter their friends.